


dense

by wisteria



Category: Digimon - All Media Types, Digimon Adventure Zero Two | Digimon Adventure 02
Genre: M/M, daiken is very important and should be protected at all costs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-09 22:37:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2000553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wisteria/pseuds/wisteria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a (soon-to-be) series of tiny davis/ken stories, focusing on everything from davis liking ken to ken liking davis which are not necessarily related to each other unless stated</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a collection of terribly awkward dialogue sequences ft. davis motomiya and ken ichijouji 
> 
> number one, "picnic"

even as a child, you were never good at watching people. your gaze is too harsh, your lips too parted, your facial expression too complex to evoke any feeling aside from unease. you can't fool anyone with the "i was staring into space" gag, with your creased eyebrows and crossed arms. you stare, and you stare hard.

as a result of such hardships, you try not to stare at people often. and you succeed most of the time, for most people are boring, their actions presumed; of course, for every rule there is an exception, and your exception is... him.

every rule of yours he seems to break: no friends; no touching; no staring, no, no no, no anything. he doesn't seem to know he does it, either. you wonder, sometimes, why you let _him_  of all people disregard your boundaries without punishment.   
it was stupid of you to make a mistake after fortifying yourself to be the perfect image of isolation, it was stupid of you to let him in, yet -

"hey, earth to ken!"  
"oi, are you listening to me?"   
"come on!! this is important!"

his grumbling/pouting/shouting calls you back to reality quickly, and you're thankful that just this once, you were staring into space, and not his eyes, his nose.

"ken!"

oops. "yes?"

he smiles at you, relieved to have your attention, and it makes you squirm. "geez, what were you thinking about?"

him. "nothing in particular," you say.

scoffing, he continues with his play. "the average boy genius... thinking about nothing?! ha. and everyone says i'm not a genius, but i think about nothing all the time."

you're unable to tell if he's joking or not- it's been like that a lot lately. every now and then, the slight maturity he's garnered will be forgotten and replaced with the old davis, the inherently-insistent-upon-his-own-intelligence davis. you wish that you could tell if he was joking; your inability to do so almost makes you feel like a failure after knowing him for so long. "anyways, what was so important?"

"oh! yeah. right. are you hungry?" davis rubs the back of his neck nervously, like he's asking you some sort of taboo question. "if you're not, that's ok, i just figured we could grab something to eat and then hang out somewhere that's, well, not my school computer lab, but whatever, it's ok if you're not hungry, sometimes i'm not hungry and my mom asks about why i'm not hungry and it's like, well mom, i just ate, so--"

"davis--"

"of course i'm not hungry, c'mon, so i mean if you wanna do something else we can do that or if you wanna be alone i can go probably--"

"daisuke."

he stiffens, feeling threatened by your divine utterance of his holy given name. "yeah?"

"i'm hungry."

sighing heartily, he stands. "good. you wanna see if yolei'll let us put some stuff on a tab again?"

he reaches his hand down to you, but you stare at it for a long time before realizing he intends for you to take it. despite your best efforts to stay calm in this calamity, you can't. you accept his hand to help you up with a sweaty palm and red ears. davis says nothing about your weird behavior and for that you're thankful.

you walk to yolei's (parents') store talking about idle things, homework, "ten reasons why you, ken ichijouji, should transfer to my, daisuke motomiya's, high school" (most of which were centered around davis himself, as they should be, if they're to convince you of anything).

"it'd be so awesome to have you at the same high school. i mean, visiting the computer lab there wouldn't be nearly so weird, first off, and secondly, we'd be a total dream team." he speaks to you about this with stars in his eyes as you both enter the store.

yolei's mom welcomes you and davis heartily; you find yolei (dis)organizing things in the back of the store. "sup, yolei," says davis happily, as if he knows she'll accept his request for another addition to the bottomless tab.

"hey guys. hanging out together?"

"yep," davis pipes.

"just the two of you?" she pushes.

"yep," you say, voice a little on the creaky side, from misuse, you're sure.

"sounds fun." her voice changed noticeably and you begin to get suspicious of her motives. "so, lemme guess, you guys want some snacks and for me to put them on my tab?"

"yep," you say in unison.

"well..." yolei turns her back to you and davis and you see her elbows moving rhythmically. she's probably e-mailing someone on her d-3. she turns around shortly after and sighs dramatically. "i'll make another exception for you two, but you WILL pay me back. got it?"

"got it."

with basic 'this isn't free' speech over- and in record time, you'd bet- you and davis meander around the store. he asks you your opinion on every item before he puts it in the small basket, only accepting things that have your utmost praise. it strikes you as odd: davis usually picks out what he wants, when he wants it, and doesn't tend to ask for others' opinions.   
in fact, you're unsure of what he thinks of the snacks he's picking out.

"davis, what do _you_ think about the snacks we're getting?"

"uh, uh," he seems to fumble a bit before continuing. "if you like it, i like it."

grinning widely, you approach a jar of pickled eggs. "well, these are my favorites, are they alright with you?"

stock still, he surprises you. "...if you like it... i... like it, ken."

"you're acting kind of strange, davis."

"am not!" he grabs the pickled eggs from your grasp, haphazardly puts them in the basket, and heads to the drink section. he stands there for a long time with one hand on his chin before turning to you. "don't look, ok? i'll surprise you with the drinks."

"okay." you turn around and wait as he grabs two drinks and disguises them in the basket.

after davis bags the items ("surprise drinks, remember? quit trying to take a peek!") and insistently carries them all, you and davis embark.

"where are we going?" you gaze at his profile, waiting for his lips to respond.

he turns to you and winks. "another super cool super secret, i guess."

"okay?"

he laughs and tilts his head forward again and you stare. with davis, you don't try to stop anymore; your eyes are frequently glued to him and he never seems to notice. well, you tell yourself he doesn't notice, but every now and then, he can be rather perceptive. you stare at his eyebrows. you stare at his eyelids and his eyelashes and you think about how short they are. you stare at his neck and his ears and his hair, from the top to the bottom.   
you stare at his jacket and his arms and you stare at his hands, red and raw from carrying the grocery bags that 'his hands were digi-destined to carry'. you stare at his legs (they're shorter than yours but cute, in a way that only davis's legs can be cute, you think) and his shoes and the way he walks from heel-to-toe and not toe-to-heel.   
you stare at all of him, you stare at the weird conglomeration of body parts that somehow make up your best friend, your boundary-defying friend, you friend that you'd like to be more-than-friends with, at least you think you would, you've never really been good at reading your own emotions. as you think about davis liking you, your cheeks get hot and you try to focus on the passing scenery. it doesn't quite work, the sky is clear, the ground is grass, and when did you get here? were you truly so caught up in patting your cheeks to dispel the blush that you didn't notice when city became nature? thinking such, you get even more embarrassed.

"we're here!" davis announces proudly, dropping the bags to the ground with an unplanned thud. he pulls his backpack off his shoulder- you don't remember him carrying that- and pulls out a picnic blanket.   
the next moment, he looks at you, and his voice gets higher. "oh no! did you get a sunburn? are you okay? oh, i told them this was such a bad idea--"

"...them?"

his eyes go saucer-wide. he sighs and spreads out the blanket. "er, um, uh." you stare at him but you force gentleness, you force open arms, you force uncinched brows, you force this for him, for his comfort, because you can't help but stare.

"well, um, ah. ok, i'll just say it, soiwantedtospendtimewithyoualonebecauseofreasonssoiaskedthegangwhatishoulddoyouknowtogetclosertoyoubecauseofreasonsandtheysaidyoudlikethisbutnowyouresunburntandishouldvejusttakenyoutothearcadeorsomethingthiswastoosudden, ah, ok, i'msorry..."

as he frantically fiddles with his hands, his thumbs, his jacket sleeve, you plop down on the picnic blanket and dig around in the bag. you find the mystery drinks- some foreign cola that you used to be rather attached to, before you met davis, in the before time. you feel weird seeing it.

"i remember, um, a long time ago you saying you used to drink this stuff all the time so i thought i'd get it but if you don't like it anymore that's cool i can run to the store and get you something else--"

"davis--"

"i'm sorry for dragging you along in this i should've just asked you--"

"daisuke."

mouth shut, back straight. "yeah?"

"it's great." you look down at the drink, happy you are able to forge different memories with its taste. "i'm happy."

he looks at you, starry-eyed, expectant. expectant of what, you're not sure.

after a bit more staring, you continue, realizing you failed to address his former word vomit properly. "i'm happy... about all of it. i'm very glad. and i don't have a sunburn--"

"ah! are you sure?! you're all red again--"

"it's not a sunburn." you decide not to elaborate. "let's eat?"

you and davis eat and chitchat and the prior embarrassment is nearly gone.

you stare at clouds and for each bizarre, random shape, he yells out a member of the group. "t.j., because that one looks like a bug and he bugs me sometimes"; "kari, because it's by the sun"; "cody, it reminds me of his bowlcut"; "yolei." he pauses. "i don't have a reason"; "ken, because it looks cool"; "me, because it looks cooler than yours. heh".

eventually the sky turns orange and you two pack up the stuff. he ferries the trash to a garbage can and you stare at him as he goes; you fold up the picnic blanket and watch as it all goes to waste as he shoves it into his backpack.

you start walking, heading for the train station. "i'll, uh, walk you home," davis says, staring at the ground, the streetlights, the cracks in the sidewalk.

"you don't have to, it's far and it's already pretty dark."

"i want to."

there's nothing much to say to that, because davis is stubborn. surely, you aren't complacent because you _want_ him to walk you home.   
definitely not. 

 

 

 


	2. shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> while prepping for a picnic at the inoue shop, your long-winded observational study of daisuke and ken comes to a close.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i also did this in my writer's workshop class. i nearly always write in second person but as we were told to 'do it from a different perspective' i decided to make "you" kari, for "explorative purposes" (i know it's not a perspective but i wasn't feeling the alternative). but most of the time, it sounds like third person. i tried. spacing is always ? with google docs

 

for a while now, you’ve been watching them. normally, you wouldn’t fancy yourself to such a hobby, but… it’s interesting.

it’s interesting because you’re positive daisuke likes ken, and they way he acts is incredibly different than with how he did with you. (you’re also fairly sure ken likes daisuke, but you don’t have a record of how ken acts when he likes someone: there’s nothing to base his behavior off of aside from his attachment to daisuke, which, for all you know, could be how he acts with close friends. but somehow, you doubt it).

 

likewise, daisuke is very cautious around ken, perhaps even delicate. opening doors and pulling out chairs and letting ken enter first. it’s always horrendously awkward, with daisuke either being too loud (“AFTER YOU, KEN”) or too quiet, too fast (“uh, um, i was, er, well, pulling out this chair for you butthatsokyousittherei’llsithere”). ken typically smiles and looks at the floor after these actions, usually taking the seat daisuke had pulled out, or entering the door after a short bow, saying ‘thank you, daisuke’.

daisuke always looks happy after those events: he slightly puffs out his chest, or puts his hands on his hips, or rubs the back of his neck while saying something stupid and accidental, like “it was my problem” or “no pleasure”.

 

daisuke buys ken things a lot, and ken always seems awkward about accepting them, but as daisuke is very forward and very firm, ken accepts.

it’s happening now, actually. you and the gang are at miyako’s (parent’s) shop, buying things for a picnic to have in the digital world. daisuke is insisting with all of his might that he buys ken’s lunch.

 

“c’mon, ken, just this once,”

“but, daisuke, you say that every time you want to buy me something, which is a lot of the time…”

“so? let me buy it for you! i wanna!”

ken stays silent. you hear iori and miyako fussing over what flavor of soda to get; takeru is behind you, eenie-meenie-miney-moeing on which color of plastic utensils  to get.

“please?” says daisuke, trying to look very stereotypically cute, with his hands clasped together in front of his chest and his eyes wide. ironically, it’s the same pose he does when he tries to get one of the others to buy something for him.

“daisuke,” at ken’s words, daisuke lights up, and starts to ease off the so-called ‘cute factor’. “...let me buy your lunch today.”

 

the words are quiet and you, in fact, barely hear them. trying to act natural, you sift through whatever’s in front of you, with one eye and two ears fully focused on their conversation. you know from ken’s tone of voice that he was embarrassed to ask--a true polar to daisuke, who begs and pleads and sheds tears. takeru is saying words to you but you wave your hand at him to shh-shh, this is a rather important development (for the past week or so, things had been so slow; you were getting tired of staring at ken and daisuke all the time, actually. they were so busy staring at each other, however, that they never noticed).

you hear takeru sigh--he’s aware of your observational study, in fact. he disapproves of it because it’s “invading their privacy”, but you’re rather sure he is upset with the focus being on not him. you’d think and ponder about why that is, but you’re busy, for god’s sake.

 

daisuke’s ears are nearing the same color as his hair. ken, surprisingly, is holding eye contact with his opposite, who looks like he’s having trouble.

 

“um, um, uh, that’d be great, ken, um,” he lets out a rather weird sigh-type thing, which also perhaps could have been a laugh, or a whimper, or some sort of call to the baby digimon to prepare his will (he said, once, that they were his lawyers. you don’t remember the context but frequently wish you did). “...thank you.”

 

daisuke, picking up bargain items and acting frivolously, seems to be upsetting ken, now. ken steps over (you’ve moved to the cookie and candy aisle, along with a begrudging takeru) and grabs six packages of name-brand cookies and puts them in the basket.

 

“whoa, ken, we don’t need that many cookies! not that i wouldn’t like that many cookies, but, well…” daisuke reaches into the basket to pull some of them out, but ken places his hand on top of the tanner one, the one which, you were sure, had to be at a feverish temperature.

 

“let me buy these for you.” he says sternly; daisuke pulls his hand back reluctantly as ken pushes more packages into the basket. “i’ll buy you anything you want.”

 

uh oh. now daisuke was going to go ballistic, not only with embarrassment but with happiness and he’d make poor ken go bankrupt--you thought about intervening, asking if ken really wanted to buy so many packages of the same type of cookie (a simple way to suggest a rethink of the situation). but daisuke took ken’s words as some sort of a challenge.

 

crossing his arms, daisuke purses his lips and makes a show of gaping and poking around. ken stands rather still, with two hands holding the basket, which hits at about his knees.

after several minutes in which you lose interest and ask takeru why he got yellow of all colors; after several minutes of finding some jello desserts, and pawing around at the candies, you see miyako flailing wildly a small distance from you. even takeru is standing, transfixed; iori, too. you tip-toe over and you happen to be just in time.

 

“well, after some intense and totally necessary deliberation, i know what i would like you to buy me, ken ichijouji.” daisuke struts circles around ken with his hands behind his back.

the store is silent aside from the whirring of the air conditioning and the soft hum of the fluorescent lights. there’s even a break in the jaunty, eight-bit-esque music that tends to murmur.

“what is it?”

daisuke seems so proud of himself, like he does when he gets the answer right to a question in your math class, or the answer right in any class, actually.

 

“i-chi-jou-ji ken,” he says, piecing out the words in a sing-song voice (to build suspense, probably, but by now another customer has entered the mart and the music has started again. iori, after sighing, went to exchange the yellow utensils for a color more appetizing).

 

“i want you…”

“daisuke,” ken says, either tired of being nervous about it or just tired of it because it’s gone on for so long.

“to buy me… _dinner_.”

miyako hits her head on the shelf and takeru groans. “jeez, daisuke, you’re such an idiot,”

you start giggling, but ken seems confused. miyako pipes up now: “iori could’ve done better than that. iori, daisuke.”

“whaddya mean! the delivery was great! ken totally got the message, right ken?” without waiting for an answer, he continues. “see? tch, you guys don’t know anything!”

“i… didn’t get it. what’s the big deal? you want me to buy you dinner? if that’s the case, i don’t really understand the whole act--”

daisuke opens his mouth, but miyako, (un?)surprisingly, is faster.

 

“ICHIJOUJI, HE WANTS YOU TO TAKE HIM ON A DATE! HE WANTS YOU TO DATE HIM!”

miyako melodramatically collapses onto the floor and takeru looks so upset. iori is now standing near you, with his arms crossed. “why didn’t he just say something a little more forward?”

you hear his words, but you’re more focused on daisuke and ken. you hope that this means your observation will be nearly over- and thank goodness- you were beginning to feel a little weird about it. but studying others’ behavior is interesting and even more interesting when you do it without the aid of miyako’s fantastical ideas. (“hikari i’d love to spy on ken and daisuke with you but i can’t imagine you finding out something we don’t know already. they’re soo into each other. isn’t it a little more fun to be a detective, to really figure things out?!”)

 

daisuke turns to ken and does the trademark smile/shrug combination.

 

“okay” is all ken says.

“is that like an ‘okaaaaay’ or is it like an ‘okay!’?”

“it’s more like an ‘i’d really enjoy that’.”

daisuke does some sort of weird, seemingly-choreographed jig before hugging ken tightly and then walking over to iori and shaking his hand violently. he does this with everyone while reciting a bizarre speech: “thank you all for believing in me. it’s thanks to you i got this far. i hope that you all can still keep your jealousy in check even though ken ichijouji likes me. i know. i know it’ll be hard, especially for you takeru, you’re jealous of me anyways, but try to tone it down even though you know that ken ichijouji and i will be going on a date. just, y’know, think about hats or whatever it is you do to calm down.”

takeru sighs but seems happy for daisuke, who is acting like he won some sort of award. but you realize that to him, he did; a reward much greater than a soccer trophy, or a school honor roll plaque (though he’s never gotten one of those).

 

after his weird monologue that left ken with hands covering his face, he takes ken’s hand and says “LET’S GO”!

 

ken’s face, surprised at first, soon softens into a smile as he follows daisuke.

 

“but it’s not time for dinner yet,” iori says, while takeru follows with “just let them go. at least this way we’ll be able to finish shopping.”

you can’t argue with that, nor can you argue with the blue color iori picked out for the utensils.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the main reason i picked kari is she definitely seems like the stark and silent observer type, purely out of curiosity for how other people work. that, and yolei's would've been "his slightly lidded eyes signify his willingness to not only purchase daisuke sixteen packages of cookies, but also to hold his slightly tanner hand and to feel the grip of daisuke's baby-looking hands, or even commit a misdemeanor for him", t.k. wouldn't do it, and cody....., well, yeah. love that iori hida


End file.
